Damsel to De-Stress [Damsel/Irvine]

Irvine stood about in the Commercial Ward, waiting alongside a small complement of his ethereal companions for a certain someone he'd managed to get out an invitation to spend time with. After what had happened in their last meeting, they deserved a proper chance to have fun.
And swirling ether, did she deserve it. Damsel wasn't half looking miserable on their way back.
After how cheery she'd been before that point, that was no way to be.

He took a deep breath as his shadow flickered beneath him. Ever since then, the thing had started to act up, to almost act of his own will. He wasn't happy about it - it spoke of things he would really have preferred not to have in his life - but for now, he had to deal with it.
Working to stave off the sourness, Irvine started making pictures and shadow puppets in the air while he waited, animating them through various scenes.
Who knows? Maybe she'd enjoy the show.

Damsel's cheerful voice rose over the general murmur of commercial ward as she approached where Irvine stood. The smile she wore was a cheerful one and she held an air of carefree joy  as she nearly skipped to stand near the shadow man. "Is that something your variety of Baseline can do? It's sooooo neat! I wish I could do something like that!"

Grinning as he hears Damsel, the current scene in shadows - two griffin-esque creatures performing a juggling act - swirls and transforms into a mock-up of the one playing now, a live recreation of the pair's every motion in silhouette, down to the swaying strands of Damsel's hair.
No harm in showing off a little here for the sake of entertainment.


Irvine waves as the girl approaches, before settling his hands in his pockets. The black of his left hand moves and creeps along his arm as he works the shadows, forming into the starts of intricate, tribal patterns before retreating and starting a new pattern. "You think this is cool, you should see the stuff my friends can do. Ally can do crazy things with the light, and Ray's got handling the fire down to the point he can cook with it." He laughs and shakes his head, his little floating silhouette mimicking the motion. "You have no idea how much that saves us, let me tell you."

"So!" With a flourish and a manic grin, Irvine grabs his own silhouette out of the air and starts to seemingly toss it between his hands, leaving it to flail as it's sent hurtling through the air as the silhouette of Damsel watches on, surprised and bemused. "What strikes our fair Damsel's interest on this fine day? The ethereal host is ready for shenanigans, the fine cuisine of my friends is available on request, and for anything else that might strike your fancy, I'm at your beck and call."
Winking, he takes the silhouette of Damsel and works that into the routine, Irvine's silhouette posing and pratting about while Damsel's cheerful flips and tumbles through the air. "Just gotta say the word."

"My my well aren't you a gentlemen, Mr.ShdowBoy." Damsel would hide a chuckle behind her hand and try to keep her attention away from the shadows dance and more on Irvine himself. The question of if this was an ability shared by everyone of their species or if he was just special was quickly forgotten and replaced with the much more pertinent and important question of what she wanted to do on their little outing together. With so many possibilities in Commercial ward it would be hard to widdle it down to just one but she was confident she could if she tried hard enough.

She would place a single finger to her lips and hum as she fell deep into thought over what she could have the boy, who very nobly threw himself at her beck and call, do. The options of food or further shadow puppetry sounded very interesting indeed, buuuuuuut one thing did spring to mind as a fun little distraction from the impending business on Determination "Ya know I haven't been to the Blue Light district in a while! We could go checkout Astro Arcade!"

Irvine grins wide, shrugging as he gets more elaborate with juggling the silhouettes. "What can I say? I made an offer with intention to delight, and I've got no plans to go back on that." And so far, it looked like he was doing well. Damsel seemed to be in a good mood so far, and now he just needed to keep that going.
Good thing he had help, huh?

Irvine gives a nod as he stops juggling to toss the silhouettes up in the air. "Well then, what are we waiting for?" Carefully controlling the motion of the shadows he'd made of them, the black-formed mimicries of the pair arc and slow, hovering in the air for a brief moment before diving down toward the shadows of the people they mimicked, disappearing into them without a trace. "Let's get going!"
Irvine pivots around on his heel to face toward the path they'd be taking, looking in Damsel's direction with a little smirk. "Though I hope you're not afraid of a little competition."

"Competition? Oh dear sweet naive boy, you don't understand much of anything do you?" An edge found it's way into Damsel's voice as she stifled a giggle as she started down the path that would lead to the Blue Light district and by extension the Astro Arcade that would be their final destination. A slight mischievous glint shown in her eyes for the briefest of moments. Perhaps it was a trick of the light or maybe Irvine imagined it, but deep within those glorious rose pink pools of expression and joy, sat a soul that only knew carnal joy and the emptiness of materialism..."It's a good thing you're so... Nimble with your hands. You're going to need those skills...Hehe!"


Damsel would seemingly snap back to the cheerful and pleasant girl she was and smile to Irvine as she latched herself onto his arm "Oh but don't worry! I'm sure you'll do fine! Lets just take some time getting there to get to know each other a bit more! Hows that sound?"

Irvine's brow quirked at the comment, and though his expression didn't change, a hint of what might have been recognition shot through him. And perhaps, curiosity.
It seemed that he'd managed to get in for more than he thought."Will I now...?"

Crane games, huh? "I don't know...I can't say I've tried one. Though from what I've heard and the way this place works, they must need some pretty crazy anti-tampering measures to keep people from cheating." He smirks. "Ah, well...game's already rigged. Only fair that people try to turn it back in their favour."

He grinned as Damsel took his on, still content to go along with it all. "Well...wasn't expecting this." He laughs. "Sounds good. You got things you wanna ask, or things you wanna tell?"

"Tell me about yourself silly! If this is gunna be a proper date this time I need to know if I'm wasting my time here or if you're a good guy. Gnary won't approve of me dating a bum after all heh." Damsel's broad smile turned into a forced pout as she clung to Irvine's arm and lead him through the crowd like a seasoned veteran. Though her soft yet teasing tone gave her true state of mind away.

"Besides, there's not much to tell about me. I'm about as baseline as they get. My home world was about two steps off from true base Earth. We didn't have any super powers or spooky specters or weird evil governments... Not that I remember much of it..."

Well. Between everything that had gone wrong before, and just the sheer fact that Blake had staked a claim before anyone else could get a word in edgeways, he'd forgotten that it was supposed to be a date he had been making up for.
If that was the game, then he'd have to play it. "Two steps off is still two steps different from somewhere I'm completely unfamiliar with. Even if I was, doesn't make you any less interesting for it." He laughs. "I mean, I'm assuming you had electricity and sciences and all that back home. That stuff was a complete culture shock to me when I got here. We had none of it."

Irvine gestures out with his free hand as he walks, grinning as he looks to Damsel. "Funny you say about spectres, though. We had plenty of those." He gestures in the air, and soon a variety of little dark floating wisps are sailing around the two. "Even without all the tech we've got here, we still had ghosts to keep everything running and make people comfortable. To stoke the flames, the work the earth and build the walls, to keep the winds calm or maintain the breeze...you get the idea. I was one of the people actually able to see and talk to them so we could make sure everything got handled."

He shakes his head, thinking back to what things were once like. "Of course, there isn't nearly so much of that stuff going on here, so I could hardly do my old job. So, I opened up a restaurant serving food from home with a couple friends. We've still got people wondering how the food delivers itself."

Damsel's eyes would sparkle as she watched the floating whisps dance around Irvine's hand, a small oohing sound following close behind. As he explained his home she would listen intently and nod along, an intense and determined look overtaking her features. Once he had finished his story of Amish Ghost Busting she would, all at once, drop the ferocity of her gaze and giggle gently, "That is so cool! So you're like a ghost whisperer or something? Are the ghosts like dead people or another species from your world? Cus if they're dead... kinda morbid to make them do all that manual labor don't you think? If I was dead all I'd wanna do is relax and spook people. Its really cool that you got to Junction late enough to remember your world though. I was like, a baby when my parents got on. So all I really know is what they told me and a few pictures."

Damsel would walk quietly for a few moments before speaking up again."So do the ghosts like... talk to you to? Like can you communicate back and forth with them?"

Irvine smiles. It was easy to forget how something you took for granted could seem so wondrous to other people. "It was a great place for sure. Some of the people though..." And then, the smile wavers for a brief moment. "Different story. Nothing to go into here. But yeah, I guess that's the idea." He gives a half-shrug with one shoulder. "All of them were alive at some point, though it's hardly the big deal I've found out everyone else seems to see it as. While they were alive, they got to live blessed lives thanks to the aid of those before them. And then, once they pass, it's their turn to give back."
"That, and it's a lot harder to entertain yourself with literally only one way to interact with the world. Even if you can do lots if you get together, if you go it alone you're still just one guy that makes funny lights with like, 3 people tops in the area to talk to that aren't stuck in the same state you are. Can't help but find it funny when they basically have the entirety of history whirling around them, most of them are just dying to hear about new stuff going on. I'm telling you - you've not heard gossip until you've heard a few ghosts going at it."

Irvine raises an eyebrow. He might have to be careful where this was going. "Just said so moments ago, didn't I? 'Course I can. Woulda been pretty bad at my job otherwise." He chuckles. "I talk to them, they talk to me. Just had to check in with everyone living around me, and between us all we made things work."

,"So all you get to do is sit around and creep on people? Bleh, you world's afterlife suuuucks. Talk about a major downer. I mean, yeah I spend most of my time watching day time talk shows so I guess I get the idea but come on! You can't go out, party, drink, nothing! Sounds soooooo boring." Damsel seemed both saddened for the poor ghostys and excited as the pair crossed into the Blue Light District and were fast approaching the arcade. Damsel would think for a moment as she pulled herself closer to Irvine and let out a small giggle.

,"Ya know, the more I think about it the more I realize that you're not all that special. Sure you're like a Super Ghost Buster mixed with that guy that comes and trains your dogs for you, but, I mean, I talk to a dead guy all the time! And he's super dull! Like, I love Gnar and all but he's so posh and prim and stuff, are your dead people like that to?" Damsel seemed to both miss the point of Irvine's skills and story while simultaneously finding what, in her own eyes, was a direct parallel.

At her summation of the situation, Irvine can't help himself from starting to snicker. "Spirits...that's one way to put it." And really, it was. People would've thrown a fit back on Charnel if you did, but this wasn't Charnel, and when you gave that explanation to someone alive that hadn't had a stupid level of reverence ingrained into them it was all too easy a conclusion to make. When you've got all these crazy afterlives that hand you everything you want on a silver platter - or just straight up throw you into the world again - working for eternity or just floating around and watching things doesn't seem quite as appealing.
You wouldn't guess from just how easily they take to it all though.

Irvine gestures in mock hurt as Damsel continues on, melodramatically offended by the comment. "Oh Damsel, you wound me! How hath I gone from pillar of the community to a simple dog trainer? Woe, woe be I!"
He holds it for another beat before cracking up laughing. "Alright, gotta admit, that's a new one. I should object more, but with all the stuff I talked them into doing back home, you're not entirely off the mark...though it's a lot easier to convince the bored than train an animal, live or dead."
Irvine grins wide once more. "No restraints, no filter, and generally not a single care given for what other people end up thinking. Your dead guy might be prim and proper, but mine are anything but." With each point raises another finger with a flick of his wrist, before letting the hand settle into his pocket when he's finally gone through each. "Sounds like Gnar needs to lighten up a bit."

"Hey! Watch it Mr.Spooky. I have a great deal of respect for dog trainers. They keep our society afloat you know! I know better then anyone how hard it can be to train a bitch." Damsel snickered at her little pun and let go of Irvines arm as she rushed ahead to try and reach their destination a little faster.

"You don't know the half of it ghost boy. Gnar just isn't all that fun to play and hang out with, he still treats me like a kid. Don't get me wrong, he's taken reeeelly good care of me and stuff but I'm 19! Legally an adult of my species. It's time he good the kids gloves off ya know? I bet you're like ten thousand or something weird like that so you get what I mean right?" Damsel slowed her walk as they got near the entrance to the arcade. She turned back to her escort and smiled sweetly as she seemed to bounce with excitement. "Oooh! We're so close! You're gunna win me soooo many prizes!"

A brief snicker is the only warning sign before Irvine is practically cackling with laughter. "Oh - Oh Spirits-" He lets out another bout of cackling laughter as he picks up the pace. "Alright, alright, good one, point taken." He grins wide, body still shaking with laughter.

A wide smirk comes to Irvine's face as Damsel continues on. "Yup. Poooositively ancient, you got me. I am, in fact...!" He pauses dramatically. "20 years of age. Truly, I am an elder."
He pauses a moment...and shakes his head. "Technically, I've been an adult since I was 10...or, well, working age. Not really much difference back home." He shrugs. "Didn't really make much difference to how we got treated, either. The normal kids wouldn't hit adulthood for six more years-" He holds up his left hand, trailing dark circles with one of his black fingers. "-and while we got taken a little more seriously due to our marks and work, it wasn't hard to see they still saw us as kids." His arm drops. "Didn't hurt our teachers were approaching 50, which was...pretty damn old, to be honest. The idea that people could reliably live to 60, let alone for centuries would've been crazy there. In any case, even once we hit 16, you could tell we'd be kids to them til they died."
"Kids with a whole lot of work to do, but still kids."

As they approached the arcade, he gave little chuckle at the sight of Damsel bouncing about as he ever so subtly made his disobedient shadow kick itself in the shin before it got the chance to shift into something undesirable. He sent a mischievous grin and a raised eyebrow her way as she proclaimed to the world her coming bounty. "Glad you're looking forward to this. Wish I had so many prizes coming my way."